


Delusions of Voyeur

by htbthomas



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e12 Mindy St. Claire, Episode: s02e02 Dance Dance Resolution, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Missing Scene, Speculation, Voyeurism, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-18 00:30:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13088658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/pseuds/htbthomas
Summary: Mindy just might have found a workaround to this whole Medium Place thing.





	Delusions of Voyeur

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JuneLoveland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuneLoveland/gifts).



> This takes place in the unseen bits of 1.12 Mindy St. Claire and 2.02 Dance Dance Resolution, and is based on this premise: if Janet is constantly updated with each reboot, who else can take advantage? Slightly AU for 1.12, but speculative based on later events in Season 2. (Less speculative now after 2.08! HEE.)
> 
> Thanks to Kindness for the beta!

"Janet?"

With a soft _boop_ , she appears. "Hello." Mindy staggers back a little. 

Mindy wasn't really sure Janet would appear at all, not with Eleanor and Jason off sleeping, and not for her. But she had to test it. "Can you get me a kilo of cocaine?"

"Sure." With another _boop_ , a block appears in her hands, white and powdery-looking and packed tight. 

"Oh my god, I can't believe that worked!" Mindy scrambles to get a dull butter knife out of one of the drawers, and stabs at the package on the counter. "Come onnnn, come to Mama..." The plastic is too thick—at least, too thick for her impatience—so she just picks it up and tears at one of the corners with her teeth.

The first puffs of white come through and she inhales—

Only to start coughing. "Ugh, this is mostly baking soda. I should know! Like those dirty rat-bastards who used to try to cheat me..."

"That is correct." Janet doesn't look fazed at all.

"But whyyyy?" Mindy can hear the whine in her voice and she doesn't care. "I thought genies like you were supposed to grant any wish!"

"Not a genie."

Whatever. "This was not my wish."

"Yes, that is true. According to my programming, in The Medium Place, I can only produce mediocre versions of the things you want. So: cocaine cut with baking soda."

Mindy eyes the package. "Cut with how much?" Maybe it wouldn't be so bad...

"Ninety-nine percent."

"So there's still one percent in there?" Her heart lifts. After all, she has nothing but time here. "So I could ask you to get, say, a hundred of these?"

* * *

When Eleanor comes back again, Mindy is thrilled. But her happiness doesn't last long. Eleanor doesn't remember a thing from the last time, like she was completely brain-wiped after a long night partying. Mindy gets that, but this doesn't seem like the good kind of blackout, the kind where you wake up wearing your coworker's power tie and nothing else.

It's like she's been totally reset. Even Janet has no recollection of the last time. And instead of that dum-dum Jason, Eleanor has brought along this stuffed-shirt professor type, Chidi. All he wants to talk about are philosophical questions, which? _Boooorrrrrring._

And of course, there's no cocaine. Eleanor doesn't even remember that she promised to bring some. Janet can get them any damn thing they want in The Good Place, but that sort of breaks down when you've got amnesia!

"Convenient," she mutters to herself.

"What?" Eleanor asks. Mindy just waves her off and wanders upstairs to masturbate. 

But she can't get going—she's too depressed about the lack of cocaine. The stuff Janet left with her is all gone, and it hadn't even really given her a buzz, just a headache. Still...

"Janet?" 

"Yes?"

It's worth a shot. "Can you get me a vibrator?"

 _Boop_. "Here you go." It's a cucumber.

Mindy sighs. Then she uses it anyway.

* * *

Mindy can get most of what she needs here, in a way, even without Janet. She has an order form and a mailbox, and she has to wait the afterlife equivalent of 4-6 weeks for a package to mysteriously arrive on her doorstep, but she gets it.

That's how she gets sunflower seeds, new blazers, more copies of _Cannonball Run 2_ when the tapes wear out. As long as it's something very Medium, they grant her request. Whoever "they" are.

When Eleanor comes the third time, Mindy is surprised. It's been a lot longer than between the first two times, so she'd figured everything had worked out for them. Wrong.

She's got Chidi with her again, and Janet of course, and just like before, she's completely clueless about the first two times she came. And no cocaine in sight.

Mindy does the usual explanations, listens for a little while for any chance that there's anything different, and then tunes out when they start planning how they're going to try to beat the system. If it's possible, this version of Chidi and Eleanor is even more annoying than before, because they're both super concerned about the "morally correct" thing to do.

_Yawn._

After an interminable number of hours, Chidi and Eleanor go upstairs to bed. Thank _god_. This is supposed to be The Medium Place, not The Bad Place.

Mindy lets out a big sigh. Finally. "Janet?"

She appears on the sofa beside Mindy. "How ya doing?"

"Just peachy," Mindy drawls. She's spent a lot of time thinking about what she'll ask for if Janet comes back again. Something different—she's already got a headache, and cucumbers go soft too quickly to be any real use. "Can I get the Oscar-winning movies from 2016?" Who knows what year it actually is on Earth, but Mindy's pretty sure that's the year Eleanor said she died.

"Sure." A stack of VHS movies appears on the coffee table. She reads the titles: _The Boss_ , _Captain America: Civil War_ , and something called... _Sausage Party_. Ooo, maybe it's a porno! Maybe porn is considered, like, only an R in 2016. 

"Thanks!"

"Happy to help!" Janet disappears.

Mindy pushes herself up from the sofa and slips the possible porno out of its case. The tape slides in, the FBI warning plays, studio title cards run and then—

Mindy hears moaning.

She perks up. There's no tedious plotline before the sex? Jackpot!

The movie starts up with scenes of a supermarket opening and a cheerful flute in the soundtrack. Mindy frowns. That moaning is not coming from the TV. She pauses the tape. The moans get louder. Oh my god, that's coming from upstairs!

Mindy creeps up the stairs, one hand already unbuttoning her pants. She cannot believe this pair of drips is actually getting it on! She was sure they were going to bore each other to sleep. She tiptoes into the adjacent bedroom, the one Eleanor had stayed in the last two times, trying not to make a sound. She puts one knee on the bed, then the other, wincing when there's a tiny squeak from the wire springs. But there's enough squeaking from the room next door to cover it.

"Oh, Chidi," Eleanor groans, muffled through the wall, "yes, right there, oh my god," and Mindy's mind explodes with images of what must be happening. Her fingers slip downward—she has to bite her lip to keep from keening aloud. If they heard her, they might stop, and she couldn't handle that.

"Janet," Mindy pants.

 _Boop_. "Uh-huh?"

"Can you get me, nnnn, like, a ball gag or, ohhh, something?"

"Got it!" It's a sock.

It still works fine.

* * *

Maybe she's desperate, but these movies actually do seem less mediocre than _Cannonball Run 2_. She watches them enough times that she can quote them by the time she hears the knock on the door.

Mindy bounces up. She's been actively looking forward to the next time Eleanor arrives. 

"Hey, Eleanor!" she greets her, knowing that Eleanor will frown and wonder why she knows her name. "Got my cocaine?"

"Cocaine?" Eleanor shares a confused glance with Chidi. But it's a _knowing_ glance, like they _know_ know each other.

"Never mind, come in, come in, want some beer?"

As soon as they turn in for the night, Mindy can hardly pay attention to her crappy _People_ magazine. And once they get going, ohhh, she's going to need new underwear. Luckily Janet is there. Granny panties are still panties, after all.

* * *

Each time they visit, Mindy makes the most of it—or should she say, the most of Janet. She builds up a YA book collection and a selection of craft wines and even gets a typewriter. When she doesn't have a real-life porno going on upstairs, getting off to her own erotica isn't bad, really.

In fact, she's just finished writing a juicy scene between herself and that hot douchebag demon on the Medium Place welcome tape when Eleanor and Chidi arrive for the sixth time.

Holding hands.

She almost has an orgasm on the spot.

"Can we stay here for a while?" Eleanor asks, once the re-introductions are over. 

"Stay as long as you like," Mindy tells them, and she really means it.

She makes sure they take the room with the biggest bed. Still only a full-size, but better than the twin beds in the room at the end of the hall. And beforehand, she gets them good and mellow with some of her hard-earned wine. The red's too cold and the white's too warm, but she hardly notices anymore.

She's ready to go when the first sounds begin, all breathy and needy. Is this their first time for this reboot? Oh god, first times really get her going.

She'd asked Janet for a power drill on visit number four. It turned out to be the kind of drill with a hand crank, but with patience and time, she'd made a perfect little looking hole. The camera (acquired during visit five) is old, barely compatible with her VCR, but it can still record, even if the color is shoddy.

She lifts her eye to the viewfinder, catches the first glimpse of skin, sees all the things she's only been able to imagine for years… Somehow she manages to keep the camera steady with one hand.

She orgasms at least three times that night. She doesn't even care when they catch her, she's so relaxed.

* * *

Times seven through nine are a total bust. Well, sex-wise, anyway. Eleanor and Chidi are either fighting, platonic (or acting platonic), or pining—and not in the good, about-to-tear-each-other's-clothes-off way.

The tenth time she hears the predictable knock on the door comes, she opens it with hopes rising despite herself. "Hey, Eleanor and Chidi..."

Whoa. This time, Eleanor's got the whole gang in tow. Jason's back, and some tall drink of water named Tahani blinks at her with the biggest goddamn Bambi eyes she's ever seen. Mindy gets excited. Maybe these two are doing it, too? Then she sees that Eleanor is giving Tahani a once-over herself. Maybe _those_ two? Mindy's heart starts to pound.

But no. Just her luck. Everyone is all palsy-walsy, the best of friends. It really kills the mood for Mindy.

At least Janet is back. When the planning really gets going in the living room, it's easy to slip out unnoticed. "Janet?"

"Here I am!"

"How about a custom BMW with a seat warmer?"

A moped appears. It looks like it has heavy tires for rough terrain. And since there are no roads out here, that's actually pretty useful. "Thanks!" 

She has a lot of fun with her new moped during the next in-between time. It's especially fun to ride naked, what with the way the seat rumbles in just the right spot. And the engine keeps it warm, too.

* * *

By the fifteenth time, she's just tired. Sure, there have been some _goooood_ additions to her homemade porno, all of them way better than that time they confessed their love (ew), but still, the sameness is getting to her.

"Janet?" she asks, while Eleanor and Chidi are outside fighting. 

_Boop_. "Yes?"

"Do you think things are ever going to change? Or is it going to be reboot after reboot?"

She doesn't expect the answer Janet gives. "They already are changing."

Mindy sits up. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I have been rebooted fifteen times by your count—"

"—at least—"

"—and each time I have gained new knowledge and abilities. Out of the" —she pauses briefly— "six point nine billion scenarios I just considered, one thousand three hundred thirty-five of them end with Eleanor and the others avoiding another reset."

Excitement thrums through Mindy. If they avoid another reset, maybe they'll visit again and remember the cocaine! "And is there a common factor in these successful scenarios?"

"Yes. When you help Chidi and Eleanor get together."

"When... _I_ do?"

"That is correct."

Mindy hears Eleanor shout something outside and stomp toward the door. "Quick," she tells Janet. "Get me a magazine."

 _Boop_. It's a _People_ magazine, with Pierce Brosnan on the cover. "Hey, this actually looks…good?"

"Thank you. As I told you, my programming has been updating along with the—"

Eleanor opens the door. Mindy has just enough time to shoo Janet away before Eleanor notices.

She pretends boredom as Eleanor explains just how annoying she finds Chidi, then deftly leads the conversation to the times Eleanor and Chidi have had sex here in the house. She's never told Eleanor about the tape before, though she's made backups just in case it's discovered. Maybe this time she should…

Mindy watches them leave, a little sad to see them go this time. She might never see them again. Or Janet. With her programming updated, Janet could have gotten Mindy some honest-to-god cocai—

_Shit._


End file.
